Swedish ISP Telia certainly sees this as the solution and is currently speaking to the film industry to try and get some agreements in place. Ideally Telia would like to be able to show new movies just 2 weeks after their theatrical release.

“We are convinced that if you could show movies [quickly] on video on demand (VOD), it would curb illegal file sharing,” says Telia’s Patrick Hiselius.

Hiselius rebuffed calls for ISPs to spend more time stopping piracy in other ways.

“We would rather talk about new business models and providing demand than sending warning letters to shut down and block subscribers,” he concludes.

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Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

At the time, The Pirate Bay co-founder Brokep told TorrentFreak: “I hope the torrent community understands what this will do to Danish people. It will also act as a very bad precedent for the European Union, and I hope everybody will fight this.”

Unfortunately for the many Danish Pirate Bay users, it got even worse. Last month TDC, Denmark’s largest ISP and owner of most of the cables, decided to block access to The Pirate Bay as a preventive measure. And now, a Danish court has ruled that all ISPs will have to do the same, or else they will face a hefty fine.

The ISPs, however, are not planning to accept the court order without a fight. TDC, Telia and Telenor have announced that they are going to appeal the decision, and they will take the case to the Supreme Court. One of their arguments is that they are not responsible for the potential copyright infringement of their subscribers.

“Accessing The Pirate Bay is not in itself a violation of copyright,” Jens Ottosen of Telia told dn.se. “We make access possible for our subscribers, and they have to decide if it is illegal. It is not our task. If so, we also contribute to illegalities on YouTube, Myspace and Google. It is completely cluttered,” said Ottosen, who is also Chairman of the Danish telecom industry.

Indeed, this case is about more than just The Pirate Bay, it is about censoring the Internet. Will YouTube with all its copyright infringing content be next on the list? Despite the argument whether it is fair to block a BitTorrent site or not, it is completely ineffective. It is fairly easy to circumvent, and all the publicity will only drive the traffic figures up.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.